Old MW meshes useful for OB?

[Harikari]

Personally it seems like the Troll doesnt need that much touching up at all. Just shine up his textures (or whatever that advanced stuff is) and he will look great

[Razorwing]

Thanks for the info Morden.

Originally posted by noremorse
First Post:
In my opinion, the creatures are too low-quality. As stated, they are a few years old and look dated. Maybe new textures would look nice, and make the right one doable, but as it is now I do not like it. As for the left one, the chest peice is a reskin of the imperial cuirass, and all the other parts are very low poly/low quality. I do not see it making it into OST.

EDIT: From my experience with the right creature, when making the ST trailer, the animations were really unrealistic and quirky. I think new ones would be needed for as well. Also, his lower body is extremely disproportional to his upper body.

I agree that they're low-poly and that they don't easily fit in with something we need, but the really interesting question to me is if it's possible to salvage the animation at all. That would require the max source files, and it's perfectly possible that they don't exist anymore. So at the moment they just can't be used. Then again their role would most likely be as 'boss-type' enemies, right, and if they don't fit a larger niche than that maybe we'd just better wait to see what new creature mods come out for the game. As Morrowind creatures they were great, so I'm definitely not critisizing Vorrheiss; I hold anyone who can make animated creatures in awe.

Originally posted by noremorse
Fourth Post:
I agree with Zarkis. I believe they are all bethsoft meshes. The quality (compared to today's standards) seems a bit on the low side.

Well that's all well and good except me and Deus talked about them when he brought them into the mod and he said the guy had modelled them himself. He probably imported the daedric war axe, and maybe other weapons too from TES3, but I'm pretty sure the rest is his work. If you look closely the meshes are way too smooth to come from TES3.

I rather like them, especially the Argonian and Nords. I forgot which but either the Dunmer or Argonian was a special customization job he did for Deus. They definitely would need new textures though, and the base cylinder looks pretty shoddy.

[KuKulzA]

Originally posted by Razorwing
I hold anyone who can make animated creatures in awe.

:yes: same here, so kudos fo rwhomever made them...
and tis unfortunate they are likely to not be able to be used...

[cryonaut]

I don't know if this is going to be helpful at all, but I just thought I'd throw out some info relating to models and Oblivion...

Oblivion is going to be using paralax mapping, also known as virtual displacement mapping... what this means is that a model can be relatively low-poly (like a Morrowind model but just a little smoother), but still look IMENSELY more detailed, thanks to the texture. Paralax mapping takes a texture and actually bends the pixels according to the person's point of view, making shadows, highlights, and other 3d "tricks" that far exceed that of simple bump mapping. If you want a great example, there was a mod recently made for DOOM 3 that converted the standard bump mapping in the game to paralax mapping, and it is a really awesome difference.

[Razorwing]

Originally posted by cryonaut
I don't know if this is going to be helpful at all, but I just thought I'd throw out some info relating to models and Oblivion...

Oblivion is going to be using paralax mapping, also known as virtual displacement mapping... what this means is that a model can be relatively low-poly (like a Morrowind model but just a little smoother), but still look IMENSELY more detailed, thanks to the texture. Paralax mapping takes a texture and actually bends the pixels according to the person's point of view, making shadows, highlights, and other 3d "tricks" that far exceed that of simple bump mapping. If you want a great example, there was a mod recently made for DOOM 3 that converted the standard bump mapping in the game to paralax mapping, and it is a really awesome difference.

There seems to some confusion, at least on my part, what the difference is between these terms:[blockquote]- parallax map
- normal map
- displacement map
- height map[/blockquote]Perhaps you know what the difference is?

[cryonaut]

Sure thing...

- parallax map: virtual displacement map - a very advanced version of bump mapping that creates shadows, highlights, and obtrusions on a 3d surface based on a 2d map.

- normal map: a way to "cheat" with 3d rendering. takes a picture of a very hi-polygon model, and tells the video card to make the low poly model it is applied to resemble the hi poly image as much as possible. this is different from bump/paralax mapping because it's more about smoothing, not embossing (think of it like anti-aliasing that actually has a hi-poly reference instead of just guessing).

- displacement map: actually displaces the geometry of an object based on a 2d map. The best way to see the difference between this and paralx mapping would be on a flat surface like a wall when you move your point of view to an extreme angle. On a paralax map, a texture of a bullet hole, although it might appear 3-dimensional at a normal viewing angle, when viewed at an almost perpendiculr angle, you'll still be able to tell it's just a PICTURE of a bullet hole... with a displacement map, it actually IS a hole.

- height map: this is not a seperate technology, this is just what the reference map for a displacement map tends to be called.

[Zarkis]

May help: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:3D...r_graphics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Displacement_mapping

[Razorwing]

cryonaut: Aah. Very enlightening, thankyou.